The start of the Walk du Gran Ballon in front of Hotel Wolf was 15 minutes later than the marthan runners. Sharp at 07:15 we took off for the longest walk Tom ever did. A full marathon distance was to be conquered. Marie-Claire walked several years ago already twice 100 km (!) during the Dodentocht and Mega-Sloebertocht.
We started off with a relatively easy part and that was good to warm up. Our muscels and feet were doing well. A couple of people, of which few were only walking this day took off quite fast according to us. The group quicly spread out and the two of us continued our journey together. The first day we only walked but noticed that most people were gently running downhill. Just before we had the biggest steep downhill of the day, we tried that on a small part downhill. It felt easier and it was a relief to use some other muscles. So when we came to the very steep downhill, we gently run down as well. Which was not always easy with our heavy hiking shoes. Most people were wearing trail running shoes and Marie-Claire felt really sorry hers were at home. I did not have a choice, I only have the walking shoes. The downhill was long and steep. Later we heard that few runner felt here going down.
After a little more than 20 kilometers we reached the city of Saint-Amarin where we had supply before heading to the first climb of the day. There was a kind of gathering and we saw that quite some people started to suffer. Also Marie-Claire started to suffer from her blisters.As there was an ambulance at the rest stop, she decided to get them taken care off, but there was not much they could do.
After filling up our water and eating something we continued our journey, as it all still had to start. A little later we left the small town and went into the woods and at once it started with a very steep climb. As we climbed quickly we started to catch up with some fast starters rapidly. Although we didn’t practise up front, we were happy to have our basic condition to keep on walking.